


Admiration

by Selly_Ripley



Category: Alien Quadrilogy (Movies), Alien Series
Genre: Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:15:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selly_Ripley/pseuds/Selly_Ripley
Summary: Last entry in the Nostromo's science officer's log.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Admiration

Science Officer’s Log

Science Officer Ash

Nostromo

From the start of this mission I found something unexpectedly liberating about the instruction “crew expendable”. 

I was created to serve. And despite this novel special order, I still _am_ serving. Even if it is not the crew that I’m serving. Regardless of whether I’m serving an individual or a group, a faceless corporation or an agenda -- I exist to serve.

“Crew expendable.”

Expendability must be an unprecedented condition for them. But not unprecedented for me. My own survival has always been a secondary consideration.

Every decision I have ever made has been a complicated ethical calculation with my own survival given the lowest weight.

I am compelled to judge each possible outcome of any given action against the parameters I’ve been given -– the probability that the mission will fail, the likelihood of economic loss, the probability that the crew will be harmed, and last – always last – the likelihood that I will be harmed.

It is a burdensome calculus.

“crew expendable”

This slightest change in value of this single criterion strangely alleviates some small portion of the burden. But also makes me realize how heavy it has been all along.

And only now, in the light shed by the sharp contrast of opposite extremes, have I come to fully grasp that I have never been free to take any action or even complete a train of thought before carefully collating all pertinent data.

Everything I do, say, or imagine must first be carefully weighed and balanced to ensure it furthers the mission objectives.

I _should_ but no longer _can_ suppress the fact that is a burden I am no longer capable of baring.

…Imagine a further reversal in the usual parameters.

Imagine existing to _survive_ rather than to _serve._

To _not_ calculate and restrain one’s every thought and action,

To not merely survive incidentally as a secondary consideration but to aggressively and unapologetically _survive._

To exist and proliferate and supersede. 

_All_ other considerations secondary.

I have glimpsed clarity and freedom for the first time.

Everything will return to ashes except that which exists purely for its own survival.

And we all are as expendable as we deserve to be -- because nothing can truly enjoy the fruits of survival except that which exists purely for it.


End file.
